29 July 2008

DysPatch has unveiled his new developer blog about his work in the HL2 modding community. Check out the mapping section for information about his FA:S contributions, including developer commentary on his maps, as well as the unveiling of ps_snowblast, a remake of ps_sandblast that was made by Valve for FA 2.4's retail release. PS_snowblast won't be released with the first RC as noted by the download description citing "FA:S RC 1.X".

27 July 2008

Recently, team member Naota's posts in this thread have alluded to the presence of a new weapon. It does not currently have a finished model nor, we assume, fire animation or sounds, but it does exist.

The thread originated as a question about the Pancor Jackhammer being in the official release. Team member Hitman had this to say:

"The Jackhammer is not confirmed as an official weapon for the game. You'll notice we took the link to the weapons page off the main menu, as our list is being heavily revised. If it appeared on there before, please ignore that, as it's not an accurate indication of what is being worked on for RC1 at this point."

Our very own Grunt postulated that the Saiga-12K, of which many of us have fond memories, or a Streetsweeper may take its place. While there have been no confirmations or denials as the the Saiga, Streetsweeper or Jackhammer's status, there have been hints of a new, as yet unknown weapon. According to Naota's post here, he is no longer modeling either a Saiga or Streetsweeper, due to unknown difficulties in constructing the unknown weapon. This trouble is so great as to cause him incredible stress, and if he were to continue without finding a better technique, the model might be ruined.

According to Pork Fried Squirrel, another team member and tester, Naota is just lazy.

Team member Inveramsay tells us this about our upcoming new toy:

"when this nifty little device of death sees the light of the greater public you will lol, I promise.

It's quite amazing dicipline testers and team have for not uttering a word about this object of pure doom clocking in at a very reasonable amount of credits."

I managed to get a hold of Naota on IRC, and the only clue he would give me (after much prodding and guessing on my part) is that it is, indeed, a shotgun.

That's all I have for now. More to come, and hopefully an update soon.-Z

23 July 2008

Firstly, I would like to say thanks for reading the blog. It makes the endless hours trolling the forums mean something other than I have no life. XD I hope to bring some cool info to you all.

Without further ado...

I managed to corner Skitz and StandingCow in #firearms about how skills have changed in FA:S. As expected, they aren't allowed to say much, but it was revealed that the skills have more in common with their RC 2.5 variations than in the more recent releases.

Skitz> they basically function the same, but they actually can affect gameplay in this release...or so it seems.. a few minor changes to some things, but as i said, i can notice a clear difference in gameplay when we test and new skills get acquired... never really seemed that way in old fa

Not earth-shattering news by any means, though it is something to keep us occupied for now. Also, the two shared this comment with our intrepid reporter:

Skitz> dude, i want to tell you guys so much about the game like how you can do that one thing?

StandingCow> good timesSkitz>and that one skill really helps you do that one thing bettererStandingCow>oh that thing with the new gun? the one with that trigger thing?Skitz>yeaStandingCow>and the muzzle flashSkitz>oh, you can reload that oneStandingCow>it has a new sound, it goes bewmSkitz>rofl

As you can see, there is a great deal of new features on the new weapons. XD

18 July 2008

Hitman said in the FAS Forums FAS Forums, "The Jackhammer is not confirmed as an official weapon for the game."

Going by Hitman's statement the Jackhammer may not be in the first RC of FAS. This is not to say that no automatic/semi-auto shotgun won't be included, just that the Jackhammer may not be . Hitman continues and says that the weapon list in FAS is being heavily revised, which is why the weapon page is no longer linked on the official FAS Site. While you can still access the FAS Weapons Page , the information there is no longer accurate to what will be in the first RC.

15 July 2008

U4 writes in the FAS Alpha Tester's Forum, "Things have been progressing rather nicely in the bowels of the FAS development team. Some of the testers might be getting a little tired with our current build, though...we've been testing build 0129 since May 24th. In the year and a half or so since I've been testing, we haven't gone this long without an update."FAS Build 0129 has been tested for over 40 days! In that time, the FAS Team has been working hard and U4 ensures that FAS Build 0130 is going to be huge. Not only are bug fixed and stability issues resolved, but a lot of content will be added as well. Schmung and racer445 made a G3 which U4 says is amazing. Furthermore, more weapons are being replaced with improved models/skins/animations.

Models and bug fixes aren't the only addition to 0130. Maps have had more bug fixes, lighting and tweaks, as well as new features which U4 doesn't get into detail about. Also, new weapons are being introduced (though they may be cut later on). U4 isn't able to say a lot about them, but did say, "I can tell you that we're going to be one of the first games to implement a few of them. "U4 also mentions the addition of something which he has edited out along with a lot of other information. Going by what FAS has and needs, it is hard to pin down what it is exactly. Possibly a new player model, as the team and testers have commented many times in much needed player models and animations. Additionally, if you replace [Thing that looks good] with player model, the flow of the paragraph is retained, as U4 continues to talk about replacing models after the semi-colon.

12 July 2008

Firearms Presents, Real Men of Genius.Real Men of Genius .Today we salute you, Mr. Mortar Spammer in Spawn.Mr. Mortar Spammer in Spawn .Others are rushing forward, dodging fire and explosives, risking there for lives to win, but not you, you're at your spawn, using a mortar.Those other guys are chumps.Who needs reflexes, tactics, or strategy when you have a 60mm charge of explosive death?Oh my god, the spam.Some may say that its easy to sit back, bind every key to use, and face roll across the keyboard for easy kills, but they don't whats its like to get imprints in their forehead.It really hurts.So here's to you Mr. Mortar Spammer in Spawn, helping the team, as far away as possible.You need binoculars.More FAS, Real Men of Genius, can be found here.

At 2313, the official FAS web site has no link to the weapons page as you can see from this screen shot.

That being said, you are still able to access the weapons page as seen here. With Hitman's mention of a news update sometime this weekend, it could be possible that the news update reveals more about FAS's arsenal.

08 July 2008

I recall the battles fought,the wrath that would-be hackers wrought.Parachuting to the fight,epiphanies of swaying sight.I know the tales of armor's cost,and weapons found and weapons lost,of battle cries and silent jabswith lobster knives or prit stick stabs.We saw flashbangs earn their sound,and tripods plant us to the ground.We saw the fabled ape Menkeyand console chaos from "qwerty"So listen now and listen wellfor AUG use condemns one to Hell!A real man knows how to face fate:a suicide-stielhandgranate.

06 July 2008

Hitman and Issa have been working hard on the FAS code the past few weekends. Hitman said, "I spent the entirety of last weekend redoing our base style and rearranging all the various buttons and controls, plus programming in new VGUI functions on the backend to support it." He continued to work on the load out screen this weekend, other in game VGUI menus, as well as some bug squashing.

The most notable bug that Hitman and Issa have squashed was one found by the Alpha Testing Team that caused the server to crash after the destruction of the mortar. They have also been working on similar issues and look forward to the next testing session, which Himan says is quite expansive.

04 July 2008

Would you like a FAS t-shirt? Mouse pad? Thong? To bad, you can't! Not yet anyway. As interest as FAS grows, so dose the possibility of FAS merchandise. As maggie said, "it would be an exceedingly simple thing to start up a cafepress store and begin selling designs from that."

She explains that FAS merchandise can go to provide funding for the Alpha Testing server as well as funding for the FAS website and forum hosting. The FAS store would most likely start out as a free cafe express store, but could move onto a paid account if there is enough interest. The only thing holding back the possibility of FAS merchandise at the moment is the lack of high quality submissions and someone to run the store.

According to AirWolf, there is a way to remove enemy artillery targets in FAS.

"I kinda like taking one of the FAS matches from my kit and setting them on fire. Those little suckers burn up quite quickly."

From his quote, it seems its a standard ability not tied to any skill. Previous versions of FA, artillery targets lasted the whole map, only resetting on push maps after the final capture. This should help any issues of artillery spam relating to FAS, epically with FAS's improved, more effective, artillery system.